running only works for so long
by lismicro
Summary: Santana will cross mountains and jump rivers to get back to Brittany. Brittana with heavy Quinntana friendship. An AU one-shot, rated T for language.


**AN: So, this story was posted earlier but I took it down for edits. AU one-shot. A bunch of shapshots, really, set in some older universe (I'm leaning towards the 1950's?) Reviews appreciated. Fic dedicated to W. **

** Enjoy!**

* * *

Santana frowns.

She's frustrated because none of it looks like it does in photographs, in the Polaroids that were forever being hung up on her clotheslines and refrigerators in years past. The shadows aren't as heavy, the wind doesn't whip her hair into lazy waves, the heavy foliage is less lush and romantic. The air is almost right but it's just after dawn and once the sun comes up and dissolves the mist, that'll be ruined too.

Blue skies just didn't exist in Seattle.

Santana stoops to pluck a blade of grass, bending it between her fingers and blowing hard. A shrill, clear whistle punctures the early morning silence and fades away. The person who taught her that could've done it better. Made it last longer, maybe pulled a tune or two into the still, heavy atmosphere.

"Wish you could be here, Britt."

No one answers. She didn't expect one because it wasn't a question, but someone to talk to would've been nice.

They (and by "they" she means the other hopeless people who've also happened upon this free source of transportation) have been riding in this railroad car for days and days and the scenery has never changed once. Just asphalt and pasture and the odd cow, dusky black strips of highlighter tarmac heading into the horizon. The trees zip past in impenetrable blurs and she counts telephone poles until night bleeds through and she can count stars instead.

The people vary, of course. But not much else.

Santana drops back into her spot next to the single window and crosses her arms over her chest, glaring at the new arrivals; they've picked up a shitload of scrawny passengers this time and she's got a knapsack of sandwiches and water beside her that were going to _stay_ hers, goddamnit. Before she got on, she was robbed of her purse and if she ever came across that little fucker again she'd rip his head clean off.

The car rattles on for a few more miles, rocking forwards and backwards along the rusted tracks. The bolts beside Santana's head rattle unceasingly. Someone coughs. Sunshine streams through the window above and makes everyone glow, like they're the dirtiest angels in existence.

"Where is this going?" A scruffy kid with a Seahawks jersey finally asks.

"East." Someone answers.

"Does anyone have a pen?" Someone else flings one across the trailer, smacking the kid on the head. He doesn't seem to notice.

"Thanks."

"No prob."

"Jesus loves me." A man wrapped in rags mumbles in the corner.

"Yeah, he sure does. That's why you're here, right?" A dismembered voice scoffs from the opposite end, and Santana turns to see a pink-haired girl reclining lazily against the side of the car. Upon seeing her, the girl smirks and gives a little wave.

The man ignores both of them, running his fingers carefully over a little wooden cross in the palm of his hand. Pink haired girl scoots over to her side (getting all up in her personal space, what the hell) and tsks softly.

"He's an idiot if he thinks that's going to save him."

"Poor bastard." Santana agrees.

She thinks she's made a friend when the girl claps her on the shoulder and offers her a drink from her flask.

* * *

Sometime around four o'clock, Santana thinks she's earned some kind of reprieve because everyone has dozed off, but no such luck. Pink haired girl will not stop talking to her.

"So why the hell are _you_ here?"

Santana raises an eyebrow.

"You wanna phrase that again?"

Pink-haired girl shrugs and swats at a fly buzzing around her head.

"It's about a guy, right?"

"Why would it be a guy?"

"It's always about a guy. Traveling hundreds of miles to get someone, it's something only fucking lovesick idiots are stupid and brave enough to do."

Santana snorts and scratches at the paint peeling away from one side of the car. If she had something sharp she'd carve something here for prosperity.

"Presume much? And no, it's not about a guy."

"But it is about love, isn't it?"

Santana glares and purses her lips. Pink-haired girl just smiles again.

"I knew it."

Santana thinks she might have just outed herself, but whatever. There are worse ways.

* * *

Their transportation breaks down for the first time, luckily, about a mile away from a mechanic. They all pile out to push the car along the track and that's when Santana really meets the people she's been breathing the same air with for the last two weeks.

There's a gargantuan boy with skin like paste and a brain completely ignorant of how long his limbs actually are, but his weight comes in handy while he chatters about his brother making it big in New York City. Santana rubs shoulders with a timid Asian girl who dropped out of med school in favor of a bohemian lifestyle, like RENT without the whole AIDS business. Pink-haired girl chats it up with Patches, the homeless (and harmless) Jesus freak who blesses her when she agrees to recite the Lord's Prayer with him as they're surmounting the last hill before spotting the mechanic's shop in the distance.

They cheer. Loudly.

Later, while leaning against the shop trying to catch her breath, Santana catches a small gold cross around her neck.

"You are such a fucking hypocrite."

"Hey now-"

"You wear a damn crucifix, fool."

"It's my mother's. Yeah, he's a fool, but at least he's happy now. Why rain on his parade? Some people just need a little-"

"Oh, don't give me any of that bullshit. You're both freaking delusional."

"But we're happy being that way."

She can't really think of a snappy comeback to that, so she settles.

"Shut the fuck up."

"You shut up, assh-"

At this point the conversation deteriorates and Santana resorts to slamming her fist into the side of the car before she hauls off and punches someone. She's seen someone try to get violent and the guy was almost literally thrown under the tracks for pulling a knife on another rider.

She needs to get back home. Not getting there is not an option.

They all pitch in a little to pay for repairs (Santana considers offering sexual favors since she's dead broke but isn't forced to, thank God, once pink-haired girl pulls out a wad of cash to pay for them both).

Patches turns out to be a minister off to New Hampshire to start a "Jujutsu for Jesus" class, and offers to teach them all a few moves in exchange for his portion. Santana has never been more grateful to Sue Sylvester in her life, as she sweats and whirls and knocks Pink-haired girl on her ass a few times. Y'know, just for kicks. Like hell is she going to let any of the others get any kind of advantage over her.

Sometimes she lays awake at night for fear of having her throat slit by these people, but her new-found friend says that's ridiculous; only the "truly hopeless" members of society ride these damn things anyway, so they've got nothing of value to steal. The amount of trust that Santana has been placing in the pink-haired girl is also ridiculous, Santana thinks, but it hasn't failed her yet.

* * *

Pink-haired girl actually tries to kiss her, once, as they're pulling into some city on the border of Arkansas. It's late at night and Santana hears sniffling from someone behind her, turns over and sees a pair of shoulders quivering and shaking with sobs. In an instant she pulls her new friend into a hasty embrace and squeezes her tight.

It's a far cry from the badass personality she's been cultivating. It isn't her.

"Hey, hey. Don't make me kick your ass-"

She's trying, okay?

Pink-haired girl just cries harder and clutches at Santana's shirt, so she grits her teeth and continues, rubbing her back in soothing patterns and cradling her head in her other arm. Something she picked up from a girl she knew.

It kinda works, surprisingly.

When the waterworks taper off and there's only heavy breathing against her shirt, Santana feels hands cradling her cheeks and breath against her lips, and before anything can happen her hand shoots up and presses fingers to the other girl's mouth, blocking them from contact.

There is a moment of complete and utter disbelief.

They stare at each other's faces in the darkness for a second, the girl's eyes blemished with tears and her shining cheeks centimeters from Santana's, before tearing herself away and rolling onto her back.

They don't speak for whole minutes. Santana taps the side of the window. The atmosphere is suddenly as clammy as Santana's palms. She clears her throat and tries to speak as quietly as she can.

"You really don't want to venture in here, it's fucking hard to brush your teeth without toothpaste or a toothbrush." Santana mumbles. Lame.

Pink-haired girl says nothing. It's another few minutes before she tries again.

"Hey, you've got someone back home, right?"

The light of the moon hollows out the girl's tear-streaked cheeks as she nods, a tired smile appearing in her eyes but not on her mouth.

"What's his name?"

She doesn't answer and Santana huffs in annoyance because the girl has probably dozed off and she can already feel the jelly that her legs are going to be in the morning. But she brushes the back of her hand against the girl's relaxed face anyway and thinks that Brittany would be proud of her if she could see this now. _Look, look at me. I'm being nice._

"Rachel." The word falls from the girl's lips like she savors each letter.

"Hmm?"

"Her name is Rachel." A dreamy smile lights up her face, and then she snuggles up in Santana's lap like a toddler and starts to snore against her kneecap.

In the morning they blame dehydration and chemicals in the paint, and never talk about it again.

* * *

It's a good thing that they stop when they do, because Santana runs out of sandwiches and pink-haired girl needs to have some kind of pork product to survive, apparently. They step into the local farmers' market and after ten minutes Santana is congratulating herself on her life choices because damn, pink-haired girl is a fucking ninja at nicking food. Thirty minutes later they walk out with, like, a dozen pounds of produce and deli food tucked into their baggy clothing. They divide the spoils in the parking lot.

It's really humid outside, and Santana gazes anxiously at the railcar in the distance as she chews on a celery stick. Pink-haired girl finishes off her BLT, dusts away the crumbs, and starts to head down the road.

"Hey, where-"

"Pay phone." She indicates with her thumb. " If the train starts, call me."

She hadn't had the money for even a phone call after that greasy punk stole her stash. Her throat constricts at the thought of hearing _her_ voice again.

"There's a payphone? Do you think it still works?"

She gets a raised eyebrow and a smirk, until the smirk slowly faded from pink-haired girl's face. Santana is sure she has never looked more pathetic than she does now. Thank god her expression can almost speak for itself.

"You need a quarter?" The coin is flipped to her without another word.

She catches it before she can change her mind.

"Thanks."

She runs up to the nearest booth- the door clangs shut on the other one- and her fingers tremble as she dials the number. She stumbled over her words, starts again, tells the operator in a meek little voice that isn't hers that she's calling Lima, Ohio, and recites the address she'd known for years.

The phone rings and rings and rings.

"Hello?"

The electricity running through the wires seems to jolt through her entire body and with a jerk, Santana suddenly slams the phone down. It ricochets off the cradle with the force of her hand and hangs there like a wilted plastic plant, a low dead tone emitting from the receiver. Her hands are trembling and her tongue tastes like cotton in her mouth.

Pink-haired girl shoots out of her booth beside her, surveys Santana pressed up against the wall like a high-beamed rabbit.

"How is she?"

"She's- not home."

That fucking stupid raised eyebrow again.

"You pathetic-"

Santana shoves her out of her way, Pink-haired girl retaliates with a handful of gravel, and soon they're rolling in the dirt, and she's got a handful of pink in her fist and her leg tucked under the girl's kneecap, and thank fucking God for Patches because this girl is going down right fucking now-

A jet of hose water drenches them both out of the blue, head to toe, breaking them apart. A group of angry faces greet them both as they whirl around, a particularly incensed lady holding a garden hose in her hand.

"That's them! They stole my apples-"

And her feet are flying every which way as they make a run for the railcar. All she can make out from the blood pounding through her ears and her veins is the sound of her companion hot on her heels, screaming.

"Run, you asshole, run!"

She's grateful for it, later, when people ask why her cheeks are wet.

* * *

The girl (her once-pink hair is fading into a shade of blonde that makes Santana's throat constrict a little) gets off at the next-to-last stop. While the still-unknown driver stops the engine and pulls the bell, they walk silently to the arbor and watch the fog rise on the sleepy little town. The girl's hazel eyes flutter and her hands won't stop moving; along the tree trunks, picking at her cuticles, caught against her teeth. She bites bone-dry lips and when Santana accidentally brushes against her, she feels a tremor travel through her entire body as a single, nervous tear courses down her cheek.

Santana is watching a squirrel scurry up a tree when pink-haired girl suddenly breaks the silence.

"Tell me she's waiting for me."

"What?"

"She's waiting for me. She has to be, but oh God, what if-"

Her voice cracks.

That's the fear, Santana thinks. Can't bear the thought of wasting so much time, that they might've traveled a thousand miles to people who had never needed to do such a thing in the first place. But they can't wait and wonder, either, because without a dream to work towards, you had nothing.

"Rachel's there, she's waiting for you. All you have to do is go get your girl."

"You don't know anything about her."

"I know that you're in love with her."

"Sometimes love isn't enough."

"Sometimes nothing is enough. But is watching her from out here the best you can do- for the rest of your life?"

The girl takes a deep breath before shouldering her backpack and heading down the hill on the path into town. She kicks away a rock, ducks under a branch- and then turns back to look at Santana.

"My name is Quinn." She yells.

"Quinn. Got it." Santana yells back.

"I don't know why I told you that. It doesn't matter."

Santana only smirks and mimics a shove in the correct direction. Quinn tosses her shoulders back, turns around, and starts her descent.

Santana watches her retreating back until it disappears from view, a little shock of rose-tinted hair and military-straight posture receding into the distance. This Rachel girl didn't know what the hell was coming her way.

She waves a useless goodbye.

* * *

With Quinn gone, she's the last one left riding the rails. That night, she ends up climbing on top of the car and huddling there in the muggy air, because she wants answers but there wasn't anyone inside to ask. Her eyes scan the horizon for stars to count, but it's too cloudy (whether from pollution or rain clouds, she doesn't know) and anyway, her vision is too blurry from tears to focus on anything.

She weeps because she's never felt anything as lonely as this.

_Britt, I think we should-_

_No._

_What?_

_No, don't say it. Don't you dare say it._

_-send your parents a letter, Britt. They haven't heard from either of us in a while._

_Oh. I thought-_

_What?_

_Nothing. I thought you were going to say….something other than that._

Santana remembers the worst feeling in her life sinking its claws into her gut, a sweetly acidic mix of longing and helplessness and resentment at herself and, _God forbid_, fury at Brittany for letting Santana get that far stuck into the mire she was in.

She didn't ask for this. She didn't ask for the dance studio next to her apartment to be hiring and firing and finally to settle on a blonde who moved like she had liquid bones in her body. She didn't ask to fall for a girl who wanted sunbeams and cuddles and two rocking chairs side by side on the front porch until the day they died. She didn't ask for the most terrifying day of her life when she realized that Brittany mattered more to her than her own life did, and what the fuck did all of their love even matter when they were stuck in small town Ohio?

This kind of need wasn't fucking healthy. And why couldn't Brittany do the smart thing and let go of Santana when it was asked of her? Why couldn't she just take the goddamn hint when Santana went across the U.S.A. just so she could look around without seeing Brittany in every nook and crevice of her life?

_You're right._

_W-What?_

_That wasn't what I wanted to say._

_What did you want to say?_

_How about I show you? Want me to show you?_

_Stop it. Why are you doing this to us?_

_You really want to know? _

Leave it to her to fuck it all up, she thought, after Brittany hung up on her and never called back.

_I think we should quit living like this. I think we should put down our guns and call a truce because I never want to fight you, because you're the only person who is ever going to love me enough to put up with me and take care of me and keep me going when I want to quit. I think we should stop thinking so hard and just let ourselves be because nothing in the world matters when we're together. _

Those words, obviously, were not what Brittany imagined, because her daily phone calls stopped that day. A week later, Santana was stepping onto the road, walking her days away with nothing left to lose.

Sometime after that and with bloody, torn-up feet, she found the train tracks, and the rest was history.

* * *

She wakes suddenly one night and discovers that the car has come to a dead halt, the crickets chirping deafeningly in the humid summer air. The moon glows full above her so she can see towns and cities all along the horizon.

Santana hears late-night traffic roaring away somewhere in the distance.

"Stupid thing. Breaking down again."

She grabs the nearest heavy object- a rock someone left as a doorstop- and creeps outside to investigate.

But the driver's seat is empty, the door open, a greasy oilcloth cap abandoned on the floor. Santana pokes around the gearshift, then picks up the cap to read the word "Puck" embroidered on the crown. A lump lodges in her throat. She swallows, sleeps one more night in the driver's seat with the doors locked, and the next morning she turns her back on the car and never looks back.

* * *

It's only a few measly miles to Brittany, she reminds herself. Each step along the road is another brick off her back, and as soon as she sees the girl she'll be able to stand up straight again. But as the sun warms her stiff shoulders, the road stretches unchangingly before her, just like before.

It might as well be a photograph.

Around hour five she discovers a small river, peeling off her shoes and socks to soak her raw feet in the water. She dangles her fingers in it, scrapes them through the mud at the bottom and watches minnows stream like quicksilver away from her.

She catches a glimpse of herself in the water and it roots her to the spot. The fear stings like bile against the roof of her mouth. Brittany will never want to touch her again, the way she smells right now. Brittany will never want to hug her again, with the dirt and God knows what else covering her skin. Brittany will never want to kiss her again, given how long it's been since she's properly brushed her teeth. She hasn't shaved in a month. Her hair is tangled and matted, her skin darker and almost leathery from where the sun burns her on a daily basis. And everything, _everything_ aches.

A growling erupts from her stomach. Her last two meals consisted of imaginations.

She thinks that her outside matches her insides now.

Only five miles to go, but still she strips and throws herself into the water to scrub anything she can off her skin. There's only so much she can do without soap and shampoo and various skin products, but she feels better. Cleaner, as she lays back on the grass and tries to keep her eyes from closing. It suddenly occurs her to her how fucking tired she is.

* * *

The suburbs rise like mountains upon mountains before her and she presses into the bushes to avoid being seen. It's not necessary; most of the people on this street, she remembers, are probably at their dinner tables right now. Not Brittany- she taught dance classes around the clock but always left an hour free to eat with Santana or go out with her or pin her, giggling, to the mat on the floor of the studio.

Her heart threatens to fuse to her ribs, because she can't draw breath, her chest isn't working. Brittany isn't here, she never was here, all of it was a figment of Santana's imagination and the curtains were finally going to be drawn if she takes one more step-

But then she spots blonde hair exactly where it's supposed to be and she bursts through the gates, sending gravel skidding across the immaculate lawns of the neighbors. Her soles slap against the cement and the bottoms of her feet.

The last seams break at approximately the same time her heart does.

Because Brittany is in the front yard, holding a trowel and surrounded by petunias in trays. Deep red mud squishes where she kneels and Santana's heart hiccups when Brittany smiles with the sensation of the mud squishing between her toes.

There used to be a strawberry patch there, she remembers. Strawberries sweeter than sugar and the girl who grew them sweeter than that.

Christ, it's been too fucking long.

She takes a step forward, and another, and another, until she's standing at the gate that creaks as it opens.

Brittany looks up. The trowel falls to the mud.

The shock and the joy hit Brittany's face all at once, and Santana just stands there and _watches _her lips tremble and the tears stream down her face and drip through the girl's hands clasped over her mouth. Their eyes lock together and it feels like she might literally die of longing if she looks away.

"S-Santana…?"

It's barely audible but it's still enough, because Brittany's answering machine could never have done her justice.

"I came back-" Santana cries out, and it all goes to hell when she crumples to the ground like a house of cards with its foundation abruptly ripped away. Off her swollen feet and onto her knees, hands hitting the soil and heart hitting almost as hard as she breaks down in front of the only person who could bring her to her knees.

Brittany.

She reaches for explanation and realizes that she doesn't have any, no reason why Brittany should want her again. But it is enough to be here and before Brittany like this, right? If she wants honesty, if she wants commitment, if she wants Santana, fine, she can have her, all of her, all the time. Fine, fine, fine.

"I came back to you-"

She registers Brittany's movement but is sobbing too uncontrollably to watch her scramble through the mud and dirt to get to Santana. The regret and _oh God_, the relief drenches her in waves and she suddenly wants out of the marred, heavy skin that she's been burdened with for so long. She wants out and she wants Brittany.

"I love-"

And then Brittany's nose is buried in her neck, Brittany's hair is against her cheek, Brittany's limbs are tangled with her own and desperation is seeping from their faults as Santana falls backwards and takes Brittany with her.

Her arms encircle a too-thin waist and close in on themselves, clutching her own elbows; Santana holds her love until she is holding herself together. She breathes faster, besieged and ecstatic and faint with the feeling of a heavy, solid Brittany in her arms. Brittany cries and cries into her ear.

"you, I love-"

Brittany's kisses flushing against her skin like old red wine left to breathe on the windowsill.

"you, I love you-"

Everything within Santana focused on this one thing that is greater than the sum of the two of them together, to this place where laws of matter and space and time no longer apply. She's loving and being loved and all that's passed since she's been able to do this suddenly feels like years wasted. The joy goes off in her chest like firecrackers and she knows: this is what love feels like.

A epiphany, an railroad, a thousand miles she has come and in return-

They need be no more than this.


End file.
